Prepare for touchy, feely ... trucks

Australia's own badge will follow a worldwide trend, decorating a range of large and small specialty vehicles. The Drive team details new lines from the Lion.

Prepare for touchy, feely ... trucks

05 September 1999

"The trend is going to be this trucky look, but softer, with passenger-car feel."

That's the call from Holden managing director Peter Hanenberger, who admits it is "urgent" that Holden responds to the trend by beefing up its commercial and recreational vehicle range with a big American 4WD called the Tahoe (pictured) and a four-cylinder Honda CR-V competitor.

In a spilling of corporate beans, company directors this week revealed the future of the much-hyped Commodore coupe, plans for another Commodore variant, plus the local launch of four new variants on the successful Astra small car: sedan, coupe, cabriolet and Zafira people-mover.

The new Commodore variant will not be a revival of the Sandman panel van, contrary to reports in other quarters, but it could be a recreational "cross-over" vehicle.

Such a vehicle, designed for maximum versatility, would combine the best aspects of a sporting sedan and wagon. A Commodore "design study" will be unveiled at next month's Sydney International Motor Show, though whether this will be an indicator to the new Commodore variant was not clear.

The Tahoe, which is made in Brazil in right-hand-drive, will be seen here as a wagon and possibly a pick-up.

"We see tremendous opportunities on tap. We are not truck engineers but our colleagues in Brazil are," Hanenberger said.

A team of Holden engineers will visit Brazil later this month. Their aim: to have the vehicle ready for Australia some time in 2001. Details of the Honda CR-V competitor are less clear, though it is known that GM (and almost all other international car makers) are working on their own small 4WDs.

Meanwhile, Holden is using a radical development program to trim costs and accelerate the development of the Commodore Coupe, also expected to go on sale in 2001.

The final decision to go ahead will be made next week; Holden manufacturing executives and an engineer went overseas last week to source tooling for the unique panels of the vehicle, the star of last year's Sydney and Melbourne motor shows.

However, it is 99 percent certain that the project will go ahead, as part of a $1 billion investment by Holden.

This will include the design and development of a new, all-aluminium V6 to be built at the company's engine plant in Melbourne, and a boost in production at the vehicle manufacturing plant at Elizabeth, SA, to 150,000 vehicles a year from the present 120,000.

Holden's director of engineering, Tony Hyde, said the company had calculated the cost and returns of the Coupe on sales volumes ranging from 500 to 15,000 a year. It has refined the figure to 3,000-4,000 "per facelift", or as few as 1,500 per year.

The maker aims to complete the first three pilot-build phases entirely on computer - a first for GM worldwide. The next car built will use prototype tooling, dispensing with the customary 10-15 pre-build vehicles costing up to $500,000 each and saving up to $7.5 million.

And the timing? "It can't go on forever," says Hyde. "[Putting the Coupe into production] in 2002 or 2003 is like not doing it at all. It will be stretching all our resources to do it by 2001. But we will do it."

Hyde doesn't believe head office approval will be a problem. Further, suggestions that it will be a $70,000 car "are wide of the mark. We wouldn't sell any, well, hardly any ... the real price is not going to scare anyone."

It would not be difficult to build left-hand-drive export versions if necessary, Hyde said.

Holden managing director Peter Hanenberger said the company would develop its own "high-tech" aluminium V6 to replace the Commodore's aging 3.8-litre engine, whose major components are imported from the US, and whose design dates back to the early '60s.

The new engine is still "four to five years" away. Benefits include reducing the weight and so improving the performance of the Commodore, and taking advantage of the competitive price of Australia's plentiful supply of aluminium.